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Afghanistan: Imagine You’re a Taliban Commander

By

Iain Martin

Dec 2, 2009 4:00 pm GMT

Try a little thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that you’re an experienced Taliban commander.

You’ve been fighting for a very long time, and have been responsible for the deaths of a great many people. Guerrilla warfare is your family business and it’s pretty much the only job you’ve ever had.
In 30 years you’ve seen them all come and go, starting with the Russians. You saw the CIA arrive with arms shipments to help kick out the Soviets and you fought the rival Mujahedeen warlords in the aftermath of the Communists’ departure.

Your friends took control of much of the country and then fought a bitter civil war with the Northern Alliance. You also sided with Al-Qaeda’s terrorists, which wasn’t a smart move. After 9/11 the CIA and allied special forces turned up to clear them, and you, out. However, the Americans failed to press home their advantage and quickly diverted their attention to another war. This allowed you space to start up operations again, bit by bit.

Then, in 2003, the allies scaled up their efforts and NATO arrived alongside a large U.S. contingent. You saw the allies make some progress, but you and your friends have a lot of experience of the terrain. Of course, it’s tough fighting with the Americans and the British, but eventually – you calculate – the westerners will want to go home. You, on the other hand, are not planning to go anywhere. You and your friends have all the time in the world.

And then you hear about this new President of the United States, called something Obama. You say you don’t watch satellite television on religious grounds but if it’s for reasons of war planning then you can make an exception. You turn-on the TV in the corner of your cave and Obama is making a speech on the war in which you fight. Your young trainee from Leeds, England, is good at simultaneous translation and promises to talk you through it.

This infidel Obama is a certainly a different character from the infidel Bush, you observe. A very smooth operator. He says he’s sending more troops as part of something called a surge, as many as 30,000 of them. That’s a bit worrying; it looks like the war is about to get tougher. But you remember that by 1985 the Soviets had 118,000 troops in your country and they still lost. Now, what’s the American president promising? He’s going to train-up the Afghan army? But you know that lot inside out – this pledge doesn’t worry you one bit.

And then, what’s this? The key point. After a year of this surge, says Obama, the allies will start withdrawing their troops and scaling back their effort. This, you reflect, sounds like a very weird way for your opponents to run their side of the war. It looks like they are saying ‘give it one last heave’ and then, whether it works or not, they will start leaving in 2011.

You turn off the television, thank the young guy from Leeds, and set about discussing it with your friends. Well, that’s very interesting. Perhaps, says one colleague, if you all just lie low and hide for a year then the Americans and the British will think they’ve won. They’ll leave and you can quickly get back in control. Hmmmm… the Americans and NATO are cleverer than that, you say, they’ll come looking for the Taliban.

No, it sounds like you’re going to have to steel yourself for a year more of increased fighting. But what’s one more year in Afghanistan’s long and troubled history? And your opponent has just told you, on television in front of the world, that after that he’s going to start withdrawing.

Now, Taliban commander, do you feel depressed or perhaps rather encouraged?